


the abyss is staring back at you

by Twinkletalon



Category: Cursetorn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, POV Second Person, Video Game Mechanics, can be read as romantic if you really squint, i tried to include a few notable events but i know i missed a few of the good ones, the character death isn't explicit but heed the warnings it happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27841753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twinkletalon/pseuds/Twinkletalon
Summary: You have to believe that there’s a way to save them.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	the abyss is staring back at you

**Author's Note:**

> hello from the cursetorn discord im here to make a fandom tag   
> .  
> .  
> .  
> ...now the real question is who's going to write the kein x demon fic

Your newest patient is surprisingly easy to get along with. Nothing about them made you want to switch jobs, or leave the all but abandoned cottage in the middle of the woods in which they reside. The only problem with the arrangement of course, was the curse festering inside of their body. 

You spend the mornings of the first week checking up on them periodically and mixing the medicine which will help to prevent the curse from spreading. It’s tedious work, crushing the herbs and boiling the powders into a liquid form for your patient to drink. Kein seems to appreciate the gesture, although the few times the medicine needed to be directly injected into their bloodstream you had to reassure them that everything would be alright. Their hesitant smile warmed your heart, and reminded you why you decided to become a doctor in the first place. It was monotonous in its simplicity, and you almost lost yourself in the comfortable air of control you seemed to have over the curse’s progress. 

Then the crows appeared. 

They showed up in flocks, gathering on the windowsill and pecking at the handle until you shooed them away. Your patient seems especially aggravated whenever they would show up; a glint of panic appeared in their eyes wherever they caught sight of one of the birds through the window. You would have covered the window days ago if you didn’t need to peek out of it every so often to check for more of the pesky creatures. 

Despite their sudden shift in attitude, the second week passes by almost as easily as the first. You treat Kein regularly, and their health stays consistently bleak in spite of the dozens of herbs you lather onto their skin and feed them every day. 

You feel like you’ve run out of inventive ways to administer the medicine to potentially heighten its potency. It's only when Kein goes to bed one night after their usual dose and their complexion worsens in their dream state that you realize, they might be growing an immunity to the herbs. 

Your usual forays into the forest surrounding the cottage become frantic as you try to find something of use for your medicine, picking up whatever you see that might be valuable. The infrequent trips into town become more and more commonplace as you have to barter for larger amounts of supplies from the local shopkeepers. Even visiting your old friend becomes strained and infrequent as you dedicate all of your free time to studying the books Kein gave to you about the curse that they suffer from. It's nothing extremely useful to your current predicament, only techniques on how to painlessly kill those who suffer from the effects of a curse. There’s nothing in these old books about how to actually stop a curse one it has already happened. But you know that there must be some concrete way to save them. 

You have to believe that there’s a way to save them. 

The third week passes by in a rush of treatments and failed attempts at gardening. Gardening was never your strong suit. You scour over your measly garden prospects, before deciding to throw it all out the window and scavenge in the forest itself for more herbs. They aren’t growing fast enough to keep up with the amount you need to treat Kein. You give them medicine as often as you can, silently cleaning up the black bile that spills out of their mouth during your conversations with them. Their coughing fits are growing more and more frequent. 

Kein is looking worse by the day. 

By the fourth week you can feel yourself becoming just as haggard as your patient. Your time is spent running back and forth between exploring outside and reassuring Kein that everything would be alright. In the first few weeks they believed you; but now that you have to wash the bucket at their bedside of the viscous black substance multiple times a day, their smile grows dimmer every time you have to say it. 

You find a temporary reprieve in asking Kein to help you construct a small scarecrow to ward off the growing number of crows. They can’t do much to help, their hands weak from the pain, yet Kein tries their best to help you stitch together a straw hat for the scarecrow to wear as it sits in the long abandoned garden. It works for a few days, which allows you to get ahead in some of the research you’ve been putting behind in favor of endlessly scavenging for more herbs. For the first time in weeks you feel accomplishment in what you’ve been doing, and you sigh a breath of relief. It lasts until you glance at the window out of the corner of your eye and see something that definitely could not be considered a normal crow staring back at you. 

Trying to put the multi-eyed bird out of your mind, you busy yourself with researching more ways to break Kein free from the curse that is slowly killing them. The only thing you can find is that the curse they have is attracted to sources of heat, which doesn’t help you much considering the temperate climate they live in doesn’t leave much room for heat waves. 

Your research is proving to be fruitless and the modifications you’ve made to the base treatment recipe can only work for so long. On your latest dose, Kein absentmindedly says that they can’t tell the difference anymore. 

You desperately try to keep their hopes up. But it’s difficult to do so when you yourself can’t seem to scrounge up the will to smile at them in the morning anymore. All you can see is their bloodshot eyes and the trembling fingers as they skim the book that they used to love to read. 

The house is barren these days, all necessities put into stiving off the effects of the curse from the supplies kept in storage to the spices used for cooking. You think you might be going insane. You see hands creeping under the floorboards and the eyes of the demonic crows haunt you in your sleep. It's almost as though the curse is affecting you just as much as it is your patient. 

Then you see the way that Kein struggles to get themselves out of bed in the mornings, and the blank expression on their face as they stare into the fireplace that glows in the dead of night; which makes you remember the exact reason why you were the only one who was able to take care of them in the first place. 

The fifth week is as uneventful as it is terrifying. The Kein you once knew has long been replaced by the entity housed inside their body. You might be hallucinating it, but you swear when you call out their name a flash of recognition appears in their eyes. Anything else leaves them motionless, except for the ever burning fireplace which you almost religiously stock every night. It’s painstaking work to have enough firewood to keep the fire going into the long hours of the night but it’s worth it to see the light of day again. This can't keep going on for much longer. 

The sixth week is the same as the last. Your head goes foggy about halfway through when you realize that you haven’t had the chance to go outside and forage for more supplies in days. Whatever is left of Kein stares at you impassionately as you use up the last of the herbs to make one final dose of medicine. 

The seventh week marks your final days. You’ve had time to prepare for it after all. 

The supplies and medicine had run out last week. The only thing keeping you alive is the dwindling fire and its heat. You glance at the empty rack where you used to keep the extra firewood, now left to collect dust in the corner of the room. Kein, as usual, has decided to crouch down directly in front of the fire. Using the last of your strength, you sit down beside them. 

They won't look you in the eyes, whatever it is that stole your patient’s mind away from them. You’re almost glad that they don’t have to be here anymore; to experience what is about to come. They always said you were a kind doctor. 

The fire is weaker than you’ve ever let it get for the past two weeks. You’re certain that it will go out in the middle of the night. Nothing to distract the curse from devouring anything it sees with a heat signature. You’re not sure to what extent the curse will go to find new prey, and you allow yourself to feel a pang of concern for the nearby town before reminding yourself of how exactly your patient got to be left alone in this cottage in the first place. They would have been willing to let Kein rot away here alone and suffer under the pain of the curse as it overtook their body. 

They would have been alone if you didn’t stick around as long as you have. You don’t regret staying by their side in the slightest, even as you can feel the demonic rage trapped inside the body of your former patient. 

You can feel yourself drifting off into a dreamless sleep as the exhaustion of the past few weeks finally catches up with you. Sitting at the fireside is comfortable, and you allow yourself to rest your head on Kein’s shaking shoulders. Their muscles are tense, as if they know what’s about to happen even if they don’t have full control of themselves anymore. 

A sad smile makes its way onto your face, and you blindly reach for their hand. It comes as a pleasant surprise when you can feel them clench back if ever so slightly. 

“I’m sorry. For everything, doc.” 

Perhaps Kein’s final mercy was killing you as painlessly as possible.


End file.
